Monthly Archives: March 2016

If You Try Really Hard

Date: March 10, 2016

Author: astottler

Hello! I just watched the 16.3 announcement. When Dave Castro (the director) of the games pretended like it was a 20 minute AMRAP? Not cool. Not cool at all. (It’s 7 minutes.)

I’m not a fan of this one, because I have to do scaled because muscle ups are definitely not a thing. I’m not a fan because I could totally have Rxed the snatch, and how does it even work to lift the bar all the way from the ground? That’s just uncomfortable.

Moving on. I’m actually getting really excited to do a VLOG, and I’m starting to plan it out. Honest question—if I film on an iPhone, do I film with it horizontal or vertical?? Me+technology guys…

I spent most of the afternoon watching youtube videos (well, like an hour). I had my last midterm today and I needed a break! My last midterm was the last day of class for the quarter…

Overall, I’m just feeling deeply tired. In addition, I think I’m a bit overtrained. Between the Crossfit games, 5k training, 10 miler training, and teaching spin, my body is reaching its limit, which I knew would happen around this time because it was an intense month! Last night for the last class of the quarter, I taught a throwback spin class. It was SUPER fun, and I found myself pushing myself especially hard!

Screen Shot 2016-03-10 at 5.46.19 PM

I spent the rest of the night studying, and didn’t sleep well at all. I’m trying to cut back on exercise where I can and not do the workouts that aren’t necessary for each training item for a little bit until I feel recovered! I was going to run this afternoon but decided I needed the rest instead!

One thing I wanted to mention was the meal I had for my sister’s birthday last weekend. I know I shared the soufflé, but the entire meal was awesome! This was my first Michelin star experience.

The table shared a bottle of wine, which we all agreed was delicious!

They started out by brining warm bread—sourdough, garlic, and rolls, and even brought me some gluten free bread!

I shared a salad with my mom—just veggies, nothing crazy—but still good.

Before the main courses arrived, we were brought a cheese puff each. They brought out some marinated olives for me!

For my main course, I got the fanciest soup ever. It had a parsnip base, and was served over roasted pears and tapioca balls. Normally, it would come with spiced granola but it wasn’t GF.

The highlight was obviously the soufflé though. Chocolate soufflé served with a warm orange Earl Grey cream sauce, which they poured into the center.

In other health/life news, I’ve been working really hard the past couple of days to eat optimally for my stomach, and it’s actually been making a huge difference. I generally do pretty well with it, but sometimes certain foods are worth it. Additionally, I tried something new. Aloe juice! I read online (because you should always do what the internet says) that it might help with gastroparesis, and it’s actually been making me feel better, so I’m a fan!

This is a watered down version because I wasn’t sure how I would like it or how my body would react, but it tasted plenty good to me!

It’s very encouraging to me that I can feel really good when I do everything perfectly—so it is possible! That being said, even when I feel good, it’s not quite the same as if I was normal. But hey, I’ll take it! I think it takes some consistency—doing the right thing day after day—to feel good. And I’m definitely figuring things out as I go. But this is definitely progress!

That being said, balance is important too, and sometimes I will weigh the benefit/cost of certain things, because sometimes you have to live a little!

Finally, one more VLOG note—I’m going to film it over spring break, which means we get to have a little puppy cameo!

How do I film a VLOG—horizontal or vertical? Help!!!

WIAW-A Series of Goodbyes

Date: March 8, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

It’s started. The graduation goodbyes have started. Today was my last Tuesday spin class of the quarter, and next quarter I’m only teaching Wednesdays. Because there are some people that only can come on Tuesday, today was my last class with some of them!

Goodbyes are the hardest. I love Stanford, but the people I’ve met here (both on and off campus) are the part I am going to miss most.

Over the past few years, I’ve realized that life is a series of goodbyes. My first taste of this was leaving DC after a summer. Every time I go somewhere new, there are people I leave behind. It’s so sad to leave people that have touched your life in so many different ways. It’s been such a joy teaching my spin students this year, and I know I’m going to be a mess during my last class in June! I also am really going to miss my Crossfit community here. I’ve spent 3 years there, and the gym itself has evolved and turned into such a community.

Enough mushiness, let’s cheer up with a little WIAW action, huh? Thanks to Jenn for starting this madness.

WIAWbutton

I always seem to do Tuesdays for WIAW, so I thought I’d do a Monday for some variety because what and how I eat varies day to day. ALSO: I have decided to do a what I ate in a day VLOG over spring break, so if I can figure out the technology, look out for that!

Preworkout:

Lemon-blueberry poppyseed bread, which I remembered about halfway through to photograph. Classy.

Workout: Crossfit

For strength, we worked on overhead squats. I think I got to 65 or 75#? This is kind of a big deal with my still recovering shoulder, and I was sore today! The WOD was 3 rounds of 4 exercises, for 1 minute each, with 2 minutes of rest between rounds. The exercises were box jumps, rowing, wall balls, and burpees.

Breakfast:

Full fat Greek yogurt, a nectarine/cherry blend, and crunchy sunbutter.

Lunch:

Minestrone soup (GF) with GF cheese toast and an artichoke olive salad. Perfect for a stormy day!

Dessert:

GF blueberry upside down cake. My mom made this for my for my sister’s birthday dinner, and it’s ridiculously good. She used the pineapple upside down recipe and subbed blueberries for pineapple!

Snack: Not sure this is even worth posting because I literally had 3 carrots, but I was hungry after class at 4:30, and even though dinner was at 5, I wanted something in my stomach so I wouldn’t get hangry in traffic on the drive home.

Dinner:

Dijon chicken and kale stew topped with cheese. SO delicious. Asparagus on the side, plus half a carrot cake flax muffin (another 1/4 was eaten not pictured).

Dinner #2 (eaten in Biochem):

Besides the fact that I need more food in my day, this snack helps break up 3 hours of Biochem!

What is the best thing you ate this week?

16.2

Date: March 5, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Full disclosure: I’m writing this post to procrastinate this paper. That being said, I had some thoughts I wanted to get down.

This weekend is currently my craziest in terms of school work, but so far I’ve been checking things off the to-do list at a reasonable clip!

The main topic today: 16.2. I did Crossfit Open workout 16.2 this morning, and I am seriously in awe of what my body can do, and am so, so proud of myself. The workout was 4 minutes of 25 toes to bar, 50 double unders, 15 cleans (85#). If you completed that in 4 minutes, you had another 4 minutes to do the T2B, double unders, and 13 cleans at 115#. And so on. the cleans got progressively heavier with fewer reps.

I did this workout Rx. I literally got my toes to bar last week. I can only do one rep at a time, and previously I had only done sets of 4, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I knew the toes to bar would take me most of the 4 minutes, and my main goal was just to make it to the jumprope. My over the moon goal was to reach the bar for the cleans. (This workout was a bit frustrating because my cleans are really solid, and the weight was a nonissue, but I knew my other slow movements would be the limiting factor). After some calculations, I determined that if I nailed my toes to bar, whether or not my double unders were on point today would determine if I would reach the bar.

Guys. I BUSTED OUT the toes to bar. Far faster than expected, and at perfect pace. I was SO proud. Once I reached the jumprope, I realized how shot my arms were! My double unders tend to go when my arms are wiped out. I got into a rhythm for the first 20ish, and then I could not string them together, only get a couple at a time. Ultimately, I finished 46 double unders, just 4 reps from my reach goal. I was happy with that, and felt so accomplished with how far I’ve come. This time last year I couldn’t Rx this workout. Heck, this time last month I couldn’t. At this point, I can do pretty much every Crossfit skill. For good measure, every time I’ve been at the gym I’ve done a few pull ups at the end of class, and they’re getting stronger!

I went in the first heat (what can I say, I like getting it over with!) and hung around to watch everyone else go. THIS is what I love about Crossfit.

Other happenings:

I fully intended to do a WIAW post this weekend and recorded a full day of food, but then didn’t have time Tuesday to write it up.

This is another attempt at lemon poppyseed bread, using the flavors from the previous recipe I tried and the base from the recipe I’ve been using for cranberry orange bread. I really liked this version! Currently obsessed with lemon poppyseed. I’m not sure if it’s the ultimate version though. I may need to play around a bit!

Also from my full day of eating was this dinner, which was really unique. Eggplant polenta balls, served with a red pepper cream sauce.

I got a Graze box! It’s basically a monthly snack shipment. The first box, a sampler is free, so this was my free box! My options are limited thanks to no nuts/not gluten, but I think I’m going to get another box, simply because having interesting food shipped to my door is super exciting 🙂 I really liked the dried rhubarb (never had that before), and the caramel apple was a creative idea.

I haven’t tried them yet, but the seeds seem a little plain.

I think my biggest regret of my college career is not going to more baseball games. Before coming to college, I assumed I’d go to every single one. Things happened (read: mono) and I never got around to it. On an impulse, I headed over to the last-minute scheduled game (due to impending weather) after Crossfit to watch the game, totally disregarding my long to-do list. Totally worth it. I love baseball so much.

This is my typical yogurt bowl but I thought I’d share it because it looks sort of presentable.

This was hands down my favorite meal of the week. Bean chili (over greens), cheese, tortilla chips, and GLUTEN FREE CORNBREAD. OMG, so good. I LOVE cornbread, and this just hit the spot, especially after my 5 mile run that morning.

And finally, another good meal. Mustard salmon, garlic kale, and roasted veggies.

Actually, one last thing. I’ve sort of been sucked into youtube lately, watching what I ate in a day videos, and am considering doing a what I ate vlog. Would anyone be interested in this??